Smokemont Campground

This morning had me beat. For a while I thought I might be getting sick – tired, light-headed – and then realized I was probably hungover from drinking wine out of a box sitting on the tailgate of our truck. My brother drank wine out of a box that sat on the ledge in his kitchen. Later, when he went into the nursing home, it was a condition of his stay that he get his wine, though I’m sure it didn’t flow quite as freely as from his own tap. So, I had a few for my dear departed brother on top of the few for myself. Let’s say there was a cumulative effect.

Whatever the cause, this morning I was overwhelmed by everything – the bugs on our tent, eggs that wouldn’t cook because the picnic table was on a slant, the six-block walk through dozens of RV’s parked cheek to jowl to get to the bathroom, and the ever-present, reliable, scourge of the earth – the taking down of our pop-up tent and putting it back in the bag. I loathe Coleman for celebrating the fact that one can erect their pop-up tent in 60 seconds, which is true, and not revealing that it takes an hour and heavy prayer to take it down.

Tonight we are at the Smokemont Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and it is as serene and lovely as a place could be. The campsites are large and spread out and there are no RV’s, only tents. We are in the center which means that a black bear coming in from either the creek side or the mountain side would have a choice of a perimeter of campers before encountering us. Our tent is set up, campfire wood bought, Citronella candle burning, and dogs and partner napping. 

I worried today that I had gotten too old to do this. I felt feeble and weak and incompetent. I asked my husband if he wanted to go home and he shrugged. We have come all this way, I thought. We can’t just go home. We have to go to the Smoky Mountains. My parents brought me here as a baby – just 8 months old – and I’ve never been back. I also never asked them about it, found out where they stayed, whether they hiked, if it was a place they loved or a place where things didn’t work out right. I didn’t ask them and, of course, now there is no one to ask.

So, I am back at the Smoky Mountains, 72 years and four months later, to see what they saw, to maybe feel their vibe. Or get my own back.

It is a risk of aging – losing your vibe or your backbone or your chops. It becomes reflex to retreat and to do it in a way that everyone smiles in agreement. Yes, of course, it’s okay if you go sit down, we will deal with it, we understand, none of us are the people we used to be. It’s a tricky business to push back on that but I’m trying.

They might call it camping but it’s really something else. 

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Sporadic internet means this post was talking about yesterday.